DWP plans for both managed move to UC and voluntary move to UC

There’s a few interesting things in here: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/22665/documents/166571/default/

Of relevance to this thread - the Work and Pensions Committee requested an unredacted copy of user research on the UC managed migration pilot and DWP refused to provide it

DWP have received SSAC’s report: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2022-06-13/16820

Couple of written questions on the outcomes for people in the Harrogate pilot that missed their initial deadline day -

- Baroness Stedman-Scott unable to respond to to Baroness Lister’s first question but agrees to correspond directly ; and
- while providing an answer to a later question on the complex needs or disabilities of the people that missed their initial deadline date, we are not really left any the wiser -

Of the 6 people who did not claim Universal Credit by their deadline each was in receipt of:

1 person was claiming Employment Support Allowance
2 people were claiming Job Seekers Allowance
3 people were claiming Income Support
2 people were claiming Tax Credits
5 people were claiming Housing Benefit

The information we hold does not go into the specifics of each case including complex needs and/ or disabilities.

Ahhh, learnings, learnings!

That was 6 people out of how many involved the Harrogate pilot? I recall the number was small so wonder what proportion of the people involved 6 represents.

Total of about 36 moved to UC, I think? Maybe 38.

De minimis either way. Plus the Harrogate scheme offered so much hand-holding and support that it bore no relation to the full proposal.

38 moved to UC.  80, it seems, were issued with migration notices.  We don’t (yet) know how many of the 80 had reached their initial deadline by the time the pilot was suspended.

Thanks Owen. So 7.5% didn’t apply within the time permitted. Extrapolate taht over all claimants and unless they can improve on taht figure it’s a huge number of claimants that are at risk of having benefits stopped.

This is something I’ve done for my own work but which I thought might be interesting/useful for others

DWP just told stakeholders that they aim to lay the amending regs before parliament’s summer recess

A few other notes from the stakeholder meeting this morning - some interesting bits on who won’t be migrated either at all, or currently in discovery phase

Just on the first bullet point there: In the majority of cases, the benefit cap will mean no transitional element even if other elements were to drop. See Reg. 53(11) of the TP Regs.

The only cases where a transitional element would still be paid where other elements drop are:

a) where the indicative UC amount is below the benefit cap level but the total legacy amount is above it (*), and

b) where the claimant’s earned income on migration is sufficient to stop the benefit cap from applying, and subsequently their income drops below that level. In such a case, the benefit cap would apply and reduce or remove the benefit of the transitional element, but if earnings increase again, or other elements drop, the claimant could benefit once again from the transitional element.

(*) I’m slightly wary about this one - I can easily envisage DWP arguing that Reg 53(11) still applies in such a case.

I’m not sure that there will be many under 18’s on legacy benefits

https://www.rightsnet.org.uk/welfare-rights/news/item/work-and-pensions-secretary-confirms-that-there-are-no-plans-to-mitigate-erosion-of-transitional-protection-on-managed-migration

Dr Coffey: ‘The timescale of quite a lot of this means that I am not anticipating we will have lots of managed migration by April. This will speed up over time….’

So there won’t be many by April 2023.

And they aim to complete by Sept 2024?

What could possibly go wrong?

And what does ‘complete’ mean?  At q(f) it is used to mean initiating the transfer: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1064459/ssac-minutes-8-december-2022.pdf